science fiction

Didn’t read as much as I’d like due to editing deadlines, but I still went through a couple.

1. Only Ever Yours – Louise O’Niell. A dystopian future similar to The Handmaid’s Tale. I can see why it’s gotten so much attention, but it didn’t quite work for me. I’d try another book of hers, though.

2. The Mirrored World – Debra Dean. Historical fiction set in Russia around Catherine the Great’s time. I enjoyed it but certain aspects felt glossed over.

3. The Shining Girls – Lauren Beukes. Been meaning to read this for ages after really enjoying Broken Monsters. It was a creepy, enjoyable thriller starring a time travelling serial killer.

4. Fool’s Assassin – Robin Hobb. Re-read in anticipation of Fool’s Quest being out this summer. I want to read the sequel so badly it pains me.

5. Burial Rites – Hannah Kent. A story of a woman sentenced to death for murder in Victorian Iceland. Well-researched and written, and unsurprisingly, a sad read.

1. She’s not There: A Life in Two Genders – Jennifer Finney Boylan. My mom lent this to me, as it was the Freshman Read at my alma mater last year. It was a wonderful memoir of a MTF trans woman and her experiences. Funny and moving.

2. The Darkest Part of the Forest – Holly Black. Holly Black is one of my authors I go to for a comfort read.They always have characters you root for, a great atmosphere, and tight plots. This one is set in a small town of Fairfold where the fae are always nearby and have a way with meddling with lives.

3. The Martian – Andy Weir. I listened to this on audiobook. It was an interesting book, and how if I’m ever trapped on Mars, I’ll know how to grow potatoes.

4. In the Woods – Tana Franch. I loved this book. Excellently written and a great mystery. Detective Andrew Ryan is in some ways frustrating and unlikeable (though understandable considering the massive amount of stress he’s under in this book), but his partner Cassie Maddox is the real star of the show. Really want to read The Likeness now, as it stars her.

5. Waverley – Walter Scott. Re-read for an essay for uni, plus about a book’s worth of articles and excerpts of analysis. I’m writing about the supernatural and Gothic allusions in the book.

6. Loose Changeling – A.G. Stewart. Andrea is in one of my writing groups and she came to my Shadowplay launch in SF. I was excited to read her first book and it was fun, fast-paced urban fantasy with fae. A perfect palette cleanser after the rather dark In the Woods and the very dense prose of Waverley.

7. Second Position – Katherine Locke. If you love ballet films with Center Stage, do yourself a favour and read this book. It’s a romance about two ballet dancers whose lives have fallen apart. After four years, they run into each other again and wonder if they can ever hope to pick up the pieces.

8. Turning Pointe – Katherine Locke. Technically this is a novella, but I’ll count it anyway. It’s a prequel novella for Second Position and was just as lovely, and very sad as it’s set around the events that drove Zed and Aly apart four years before the book.

This is a story set in Ellada, but otherwise has no overlapping characters with Pantomime or Shadowplay, so it is completely standalone.As the intro of the short story says:

“This is a fable adapted by the noblewoman Lady Emilia Weatherwood. Her calling was to take Hestia’s Fables and to expand them into longer, richer stories that worked for a more contemporary audience. Her work is still much beloved amongst men and women throughout Ellada. Like the original stories, each has a message, but not every reader receives the same one.”

Professor Mildred Acacia, “Retellings of Hestia’s Fables,” Royal Snakewood University

For this story, I decided not to go exclusive with Amazon for three months. It’s currently up on Amazon and Smashwords. Once it’s approved into the Prime Catalog, Smashwords will distribute to most retailers (iBooks, Kobo, etc). I’m in the process of uploading it to B&N’s Nook Press. Amazon has been getting such bad press lately, and I wanted to make it available to as many people as possible. It means this one can’t be borrowed for free if you have Prime membership, but as it’s cheaper than “The Snake Charm,” I’m hoping that won’t affect things too much.

There will be at least 4 stories/novellas in total, and more if these prove reasonably popular.

If you would consider buying this short story and then perhaps leaving a review, I’d be very grateful. It’s 3.5k long. All profits from these stories are being earmarked for self-publishing the third Micah Grey book, should that be the way that book is released.

You can read the first 20% or so on both Smashwords and Amazon. I’ll come back and update this with more links as they go live.

Untold centuries ago, the Archipelago was ruled by the Alder—mysterious beings who vanished, leaving behind only scattered artefacts of unknown power, called Vestige. Sometimes, a person will be lucky or unlucky enough to discover that each piece of Vestige has its own tale to tell…

The Fisherman’s Net

A humble fisherman in a village of the coast of the island of Linde buys a trinket at the market, which he discovers is Vestige. The poor man soon becomes the best fisherman in the village and marvels at his newfound wealth. One day, he ensnares a most unusual catch: a Chimaera sea maiden that isn’t meant to exist. And he’s not sure if he can let her go.

Vestigial Tales are stories set in the world of the award-winning Micah Grey series. Step behind the circus ring from Pantomime, the theatre of Shadowplay, and more…

Whee, a bit of good news – I have a short story called “They Swim Through Sunset Seas” out in the Solaris Rising 3 anthology, which will be released in August, I believe. It’s about a husband and wife team who are sent to an underwater science facility on a planet called Anthemusa. They’ve been sent to study the indigenous aliens, the Nyxi, which basically look like giant tardigrades, but multi-coloured and with wings. Things don’t go according to plan.

I quite like this story – I wrote it a few years ago and gave it a re-edit this year, and I’m so glad it found a home. A huge thanks to Ian Whates for commissioning it.

I’m sharing the table of contents with lots of great folks, and I’m looking forward to reading the other stories slated to appear. There’ll be a release at Foyles I believe, and I’ll actually be in London then!

Blurb:

Following the exceptionally well received, Solaris Rising 1 and and the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated Solaris Rising 2 series editor Ian Whates brings even more best-selling and cutting edge SF authors together for the latest extraordinary volume of new original ground-breaking stories.

These stories are guaranteed to surprise, thrill and delight, and continue our mission to demonstrate why science fiction remains the most exiting, varied and inspiring of all fiction genres. In Solaris Rising 1 and 2 we showed both the quality and variety that modern science fiction can produce. In Solaris Rising 3, we’ll be taking SF into the outer reaches of the universe. Nina Allan, Aliette de Bodard, Tony Ballantyne, Chris Beckett, Julie Czerneda, Ken Liu, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Ian R MacLeod & Martin Sketchley, Gareth L Powell, Adam Roberts, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Cat Sparks, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Ian Watson and Seam Williams are just some of the names set to appear.

1. Acid – Emma Pass. One of the Author Allsorts and a fellow shortlister on the NE Teen Book Award. I really enjoyed this fast-paced near-future dystopia, and Jenna’s various identities.

2. The Dragon Keeper – Robin Hobb. A re-read for the first time since 2009. Nice to be back among Thymara, Alise, Sedric, and the dragons.

3. The 5th Wave – Rick Yancey – An audiobook listen. I’m afraid in many respects it wasn’t my cup of tea. I didn’t connect with the characters, though I found the worldbuilding interesting.

4. Dragon Haven – Robin Hobb. Another re-read, this time from 2010. The continued adventures of the dragons and their keepers up the river to the mythical Elderling city, Kelsingra. I love losing myself in Hobb’s words, and how effortlessly she weaves various viewpoints.

6. In the Shadows of Blackbirds – Cat Winters. This was on the Morris list, and I can see why. A very accomplished debut with incredible writing and a great atmosphere. Was sad to see it end, but glad Cat’s writing an adult book set during the same time period.

8. City of Dragons – Robin Hobb. I’d not read this one before yet, as I wanted to wait until the whole series was out and then it slipped past in all the bajillion other books to read. I loved learning more about Kelsingra. There was even a scene that eerily reminded me slightly of the Chimaera Dance scene in Pantomime.

I also beta read one short story and 1.5 manuscripts for friends.

I set a goal of 80 books, so I’m already 10% through it. Currently listening to Mockingbird on audio and reading Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb.

I’m absolutely delighted to welcome to the blog today one of my closest friends, Wesley Chu, who has just signed a deal with Angry Robot Books for his debut, The Lives of Tao. We both submitted to the Angry Robot Open Door Month in March, 2011. When we both learned we had gone to editorial, we started chatting first on the AbsoluteWrite forums and then on gchat. We now pretty much chat every day, egging each other on and setting writing goals, angsting at each other and how marvelous and strange it is to transition from aspiring to professional author. I’ll even be crashing at his pad this summer for Worldcon, so I’m reasonably certain he’s not an axe-murderer.

I’m so happy that his wonderful, funny, action-packed sci fi book (think Chuck with aliens) has found a perfect home with the loveable but cross Angry Robots, and that we’re now colleagues and stablemates as well as best buds. So here’s Wes with a little more about The Lives of Tao.

Today is an important day. Alongside other momentous events such as my birth, my first back flip, and the first time Eva the Airedale Terrier learned to shake her head on command, I became a published author. This morning, Angry Robot Books announced a two book deal for my The Lives of Tao series.

Laura Lam, my literary partner-in-crime and future New York Times bestselling author, asked me to guest blog on her site. This is a first as well (today’s full of them!) and I’m not sure where to start.

For the first time, humanity will finally learn the truth about the alien puppet masters that have been living on our planet, and how their civil war caused some of the greatest wars this planet has ever seen. For years, I told everyone within hearing distance about these aliens who were manipulating mankind’s evolution by inhabiting our greatest historical figures. Most people just smiled and asked me if I ever met Tom Cruise at a Scientology meeting.

How else do you warn a civilization with the attention span of drunken hamsters about the impending destruction of Earth by aliens no one can see? A person can’t just go to the local authorities and report the danger. We all saw how that worked with Kyle Reese. All it got was everyone at the police station killed.

So I did what any righteous freedom loving citizen of the United States would do if they wanted to be heard and respected. I tried to get on reality TV. When that didn’t pan out (Why didn’t you turn around, Ceelo!), I opted for the next best thing. I wrote a book. Labeling it as a fiction wasn’t a mistake. I do want people to read it after all. But make no mistake. This series will be the most important set of books you will ever read! Learn about how a silly Mongol conquered the known world. Discover the real cause of the Spanish Inquisition.

The first book in the Lives of Tao trilogy will be released April 2013 by Angry Robot Books. People say the Angry Robots are just mad and want to take over the world. I call them Earth patriots.

Congrats, Wes! You can find out more about Wes and the hidden war among us at his blog and on Twitter.

A few weeks ago, I managed to nab a proof copy of Janet Edwards’ debut from Janet’s editor. I’ve been Twitter friends with Janet for a few months and really liked the sound of her book. But there’s always a bit of trepidation when you finally read a book by someone you know, because you worry it’ll not be your cup of tea. But, luckily, that was not the case with Earth Girl.

I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but the basic set-up is that, 700-odd years from now, humans have managed inter-planet portals and are scattered across the universe on various planets. However, a very small percentage of the population cannot portal offworld, and they are known as the Handicapped, sometimes called the more unsavoury names of a throwback, a nean (neanderthal), or an ape. These Handicapped have to live on Earth.

Earth Girl is interesting in that it’s sort-of a dystopia, but not really. Life as a Handicapped is not bad, but it is limited. Many children have been abandoned by their parents are are raised by ProMums or ProDads, psychologists carefully making sure their wards are mentally stable. They have limited career choices.

Jarra, an Earth Girl, is bitter at her lot and decides to join a non-Earth school, the University of Asgard, for the foundation history course, which is set on Earth. This has not been done before. She tells no one at the new school that she’s actually been on Earth all along, inventing a fake backstory as a child of Military parents. She anticipates showing them she’s just as good as the “exos” and then yelling at them and going back to her own life, smug at pulling the wool over their eyes. But then she realises that things are not going according to plan.

Jarra throws herself into this new life, rising to the rank of tag leader on the dig sites of the ruins of long-abandoned New York. She discovers more about her parents and grandparents and tries to ignore her attraction to a boy, Fian, whom she thinks would never accept her as just an ape girl.

Jarra is a strong heroine, though she is almost unbelievably good at everything–there are no challenges for her on the coursework and at times it’s like she’s teaching it, versus her teacher Playdon. Her main challenge is keeping her lies straight. She’s smart and capable and doesn’t take anything from anyone, but when she receives some shocking news, she’s thrown through a loop to an extent that she doesn’t quite realise.

The prose has a genuine teenage voice–it sounds like a long diary from an 18-year-old girl, peppered with slang terms and the blithe self-centeredness of youth. Sometimes, Jarra seems to skip over emotional points in the story where I would have liked to have seen more depth, such as her first kiss with a certain someone. It could just be that Jarra is uncomfortable discussing these things and this is why she remains vague.

Overall Earth Girl is a fun, quick science fiction read, with a well-realised world, lots of action, and some fun characters. It stands on its own quite nicely, and I do wonder if we’ll hear more from Jarra or perhaps another character in this universe down the line. Earth Girl will be published in August, 2012.